like a dream
by kurusui
Summary: it's easier to pretend than to face your fears, unless you never realized what they were. — gray and future!lucy friendship fic. (major spoilers for chapter 334!)


**title: **like a dream

**summary: **it's easier to pretend than to face your fears, unless you never realized what they were. — gray and future!lucy friendship fic. (major spoilers for chapter 334!)

**A/N:** 6/7/13 — _WARNING_: This fic is based off of the events of chapter 334 therefore, it contains spoilers so read at your own discretion. It's about 99.9% likely to turn into an AU with the upcoming chapters. Additionally, if you are offended by the pairing of Gray and Lucy especially in regards to this chapter, please do not read this fic. It's your responsibility if you want to scroll down and I do not want to receive complaints about the premise of this fic, thank you very much. — In all honesty this is less Graylu as it is a Gray and Lucy focused fic but no one will actually think of it that way so please perceive it however you want. — 3538 words.

* * *

The shots ring in his ears but it barely registers as he's too busy reeling from the shock of bullets shooting through his heart.

He chokes out blood uncontrollably and can't breathe; he's only half-aware of the horrified faces watching him as light blasts slice clean through his body leaving only holes of emptiness and dripping blood.

His head is shot backwards but oh, what can he say?

_It hurts._ There is no time or opportunity to be anything but surprised; but he knew what he was getting into. He wavers between consciousness and unconsciousness for only seconds, yet Gray feels the pain for what feels like lifetimes before passing out.

* * *

Eyelids open, light streams in and oh– the hurt is gone, but he cannot move. His eyes adjust to the light quickly without a single wince of pain. But that's it, it's just ribbons of white shining light.

He's lying down, who knows where, and staring above him he sees nothing but a solid white sky. Is this a hospital or what he always thought was an unattainable dream of heaven? That's what he associates white with. Colors of purity and clarity and things his stained past doesn't allow for him to ever hope to be. He blinks and sees a flash of golden yellow, and for that he instantly thinks of the happy smile of a celestial mage.

But that just doesn't seem right, right now.

He only shakes his head and closes his tired eyes wishing to sleep and figure out what's happened later but suddenly his body is jerked around and he frustratedly opens his eyes again to see the same image that had been in his mind seconds ago staring him in the face.

"You're finally here." Lucy smiles, not wide but genuine. She must have been shaking his chest, as she's squatted down beside him. Lucy stands up and reaches a hand out to him and he realizes he can move. She pulls him up and he looks at her. Clad in a white cape he doesn't recognize he stares questioningly and she responds, "Yes, I'm Lucy from the future. And you are dead."

* * *

Gray himself is covered in white pants and a plethora of bandages however, they're loose and don't cover any wounds. He pulls at them hesitantly. Lucy watches without speaking for a couple moments but then gets impatient and rips them all off of him. "It was killing me to watch you do that. It's like watching a child unwrap a present, and not the fun ones that tear the wrapping paper off in a couple of seconds, the ones that pick at the tape so as to take it off cleanly."

"There's nothing to kill," he says with a soft laugh. Even when dead, she still manages to amuse him. "The way you speak is different but you act the same."

She only sighs. "Well, I've been through different things than the Lucy you know. Different, horrifying things. Including your death. Did you see that? I mean, it was awful." Lucy tries a smile.

"You say it like it was a new play at the theater. How could I have seen it when I was the one living it?"

They're sitting on the ground, the ground that is the sky, Lucy with her hands hugging her knees, Gray with his arms supporting him from the back. It's a world in which you can watch over the other world, Lucy tells him. "I haven't had much time to look around, you see, seeing as I just died, too. But sometimes the clouds will clear and I'll see people I recognize down there, fighting for everyone's lives... Oh, I'll show you which cloud bunches will clear when the place you died will be visible, it closed off right after."

"The things I miss out on because I took too long to die: a chance to explore this world without a personal tour guide."

It's all they can do, to joke around and talk casually, to keep from worrying themselves over the friends they've known for ages, who are still in anguish over their deaths, who are still fighting for the survival of humanity, when there is no help that they can offer. When they don't know if there's anything else to death but this life of watching and waiting for an end that never comes.

"I wonder... who will be the next to die."

It is not a game though, and they don't want to know the answer.

They sit and watch the people below without another word.

* * *

Lucy shakes him awake hours later again and he mumbles an "I'm tired" even though spirits shouldn't really need sleep, but she's aggressive this time, and all of a sudden he feels drops of warm water on his face and hears sobbing, and his eyes open wide.

Her face is streaked with tears, and she gets up and pulls him over about 20 feet away and points with a quivering hand to a large splat of red on the dirt and some chunks of what must have been a body surrounded with dragons. "It's Gajeel," she chokes out, and puts her hand to her mouth. Lucy leans on his shoulder for support but crumbles to the ground.

"There's no way..." Gray stares and says to himself, _I can't believe it, I can't, I won't–_ but Lucy would not lie, and Levy would not be visibly screaming, and he would not be seeing Gajeel's body starting to materialize right in front of him _except pieced together _and covered in a veil of white magic...

Like Lucy, he also cannot help but break down and cry with his head on the ground, banging on the floor and asking why they were the ones chosen to suffer with this attack. He screams until his voice gets hoarse and all he can do is watch Lucy hold the sleeping Gajeel's hand while quietly sobbing.

* * *

Over the hours Gray watches as Lucy contains her crying and regains her composure before Gajeel wakes up. Without the restrictions of the human body she looks just as fine as she did when he woke up first, and he wonders if maybe, she had cried just the same over his death and hid that from him.

It's not fair, he constantly thinks, that these three deaths have already caused so much pain– and the worst part is, the more people die, the less of a chance the rest have to survive. And he wants to give up and just believe the dragons will win– but what then? He'll be reduced to a shell and life will be more painful than it is now. He cannot give up, not when there is still a chance for them, not when Lucy is still believing in Natsu and Erza and all of their friends.

He supposes Lucy isn't brave enough to wake Gajeel, who she is less familiar with, as she did Gray, or it could be that she is not willing to face him until absolutely necessary, to avoid another breakdown. She ends up falling asleep by Gajeel's side and Gray watches over the fighters in Fairy Tail as the sun sets, those who are staying strong and persevering despite gaining the knowledge of their comrades' deaths, or _because_ of learning that... and he admires his friends for carrying on like he's not sure he could.

Gajeel wakes up shortly after the sky goes dark and he knows with a look at Gray what's happened to him. Gray walks up to him and pats him on the back with a "nice to see you, again". His clothes have materialized too, white just as Gray and Lucy's. Gajeel hears Gray's story and doesn't interrupt, only nods, and when Gray gets to the part in which he talks about Levy's reaction, Gajeel says a sorry "I only wish I could have protected her more". Gajeel is much less talkative than Lucy and the both of them stay up through the night in companionable silence.

* * *

Lucy wakes up and acts cheery, just like she did to Gray. And now he believes she's truly the one suffering the most pain. Gajeel sees it, what facade Lucy is hiding behind, and he is not fooled, but he plays along sometimes with her light-hearted conversations. The rest of the time, he spends watching the fighting intently without visible expression.

They have no choice but to sit on the ground and watch, because there is nothing else to do in this world of emptiness except look below.

"Do you think that whe- if everyone dies, this place will be full?" Lucy asks.

"You know, I've been wondering, why we haven't seen any other people here," Gajeel says. "It's not like we're the first people to ever die."

"Our parents are dead..."

The clouds cover the Lamia Scale mages they were watching and they theorize. "It could be that this world is just too big, and the other dead people are somewhere else," Gray offers. It doesn't really seem right to him, but he wants to contribute.

"I actually think that we won't be here forever. I mean, there isn't even anything to do here. We probably fade away after some time." Lucy says, looking more hopeful than actually believing it. What she means is, she hopes they don't have to feel this torture eternally, this torture of watching and waiting and being in more pain than they were when _dying_ because there's nothing they can do about it.

"That does seem pretty reasonable, though," Gajeel says. "The question is, how long does it take?"

"It might not be more than a couple days," Lucy decides. "Or it could vary depending on the person."

Gray knows that if the time they have in the world is set, then Lucy will be the first to disappear. And if the time is random, then any of them could fade away without warning, leaving the other two to wait for their fate. Either way, he is scared.

"We didn't deserve to die this young," he mumbles. Lucy and Gajeel look up from their chatting, speechless, and nod in agreement.

* * *

The day wears on, and they watch as the sun moves around the sky, almost blinding them with its light if the clouds weren't covering it at the time, and sometimes blocking their view of the fighting. There were a couple of close calls but miraculously, no one has died that day, yet. Natsu especially has been trying his best as his rage isn't easily contained, and there are no signs of giving up on either side.

It's somewhat frightening to Gray that neither side is gaining the advantage and that there aren't signs of the battle coming close to ending. But at the same time, Gray is in no hurry to see his friends close-up, where he is, because of what that means.

"I'll give them as much time as they need to win," Gajeel had said. And Gray agreed.

Lucy's started a conversation about birthdays, and it feels slightly out of place, but they talk about them anyway.

Somehow he feels most comfortable, least anxious when they are talking about things that are unrelated to what's going on. Despite the fact that they almost always have to face below, it's stressing and worrying to think about his friends; his mind can't take doing that all the time.

"When I was five," Lucy declared dramatically, "my father got me a pink dress with beads embroidered all over it. And then he didn't speak to me for the rest of the day. My mother, on the other hand, spent the entire day with me. When I was six-"

"Can it, Blondie, you've been talking too long. Compared to my stories about Metalicana that are much more interesting-"

"Rude!" Lucy says, and shoves Gajeel till he falls over on his back. They get into a fight, but it's rather playful, and they're laughing. Gray smiles too, until he remembers what _real_ fighting is going on.

"Hey guys, don't forget about me! It's not fair for you guys to hog all the spotlight!" They turn and look at him, Gajeel about to pull on Lucy's hair. He stands in a spot where the sunlight reaches through the clouds and shouts, "When I was ten, Natsu set my cake on fire!"

They're arguing over whose stories are better, or more ridiculous, and they're laughing to no end, and they're pretending that they aren't thinking about their guild members who aren't there with them because they are fighting for their lives.

* * *

The three of them are exhausted, mentally, after a day of talking and watching and thinking and while they all want to just lie down and rest for a couple of hours, and do nothing but watch the white sky above them that never changes, Gajeel insists on keeping watch over the world below. It's shrouded in darkness, being night time for those still in the living world, but because of the light above Gajeel can see people well enough. He won't relent and Gray respects that decision, so he lies down behind him, next to Lucy, and lets out a sigh.

He turns on his side so he's facing away from her, but she pokes his back and whispers "psst," and he turns back around with a groan. "What, Lucy. I thought we were done talking for a while?"

"Yeah, me too," Gajeel grumbles, but it's good-natured. "And I thought I was finally gonna get some peace and quiet."

"I hear him though. Natsu," she says, and it's not a joke.

They quickly scramble up and look for a patch of cloudless sky but there is none, it's covered completely.

Gray knows they shouldn't be able to hear sound from up there (thunder would be deafening) but he believes Lucy. She looks confused but she insists over and over, "I heard his voice, I heard his voice, I heard his scream." Gajeel turns his head every way and then suddenly points.

"There's an opening!" Dark clouds start parting and light comes streaming in. It's only been night for a couple of hours at the most, though, so Gray cannot believe his eyes. It clears and when their eyes adjust back the clouds have almost completely dissipated. They stare down at the shining ground. It's golden, and shaking, and most importantly, dragon-free. And Gray notices something going on with the eclipse gate. It looks like Yukino, Ultear, the princess... lots of people swarming around it. They watch in wonder before Lucy suddenly gasps and points directly below them– where Natsu is flying through the sky, fist first, and shatters the barrier between death and life.

* * *

They're on the ground a half hour later and still too busy crying over being alive to notice the passage of time. Yukino tries to explain the technicalities of the time retrieval process but no one really cares right now. Everyone is celebrating, and rejoicing, because they won, they did it, it's over.

Lucy is hugging her present counterpart in the same clothes she was wearing, supposedly, before her death. There's a colored version of her white cape, and Gray's wearing the pants and unstained bandages from before his. Juvia and Meredy and Lyon sob by his side over how they should have helped him or they could have stopped it or he shouldn't have done that, but he just smiles and tells them it's okay. He understands, by the way they fought after his death, how much they cared for him. And he's not blaming anyone for this.

There are so many people he needs to speak with as he wanders through the crowd of people, but as soon as he starts one conversation he knows it's the wrong one. There's a person he needs to speak to, and he's not sure who, but he's determined to find them.

Gajeel sends him a nod from the side of Levy, Lily, Laxus, Mirajane, and a few others. They're sobbing over him, and even Laxus' eyes are a little wet. No wonder, after that blast. Looking at his restored body Gray himself would cry if he had the time. Gray waves back and decides he needs to talk to him too, but not now.

"Gray!" a voice calls urgently behind him, and he recognizes it as Erza. She's covered in wounds but as expected, she's fought the equivalent of hundreds and lived to tell the tale. "Hey," he turns and says, wanting to talk to her, to catch up because it's been too long, already. "Thank you for-"

"No, Gray. Future Lucy is dying."

He sees it now, as the two days of life in the sky passes through his mind, every memory and unspoken fear, and realized he never thought of this.

He's sure Lucy is the person he needed to find. He runs before Erza can even point, body taking him to where she is on instinct, and in seconds Gajeel is behind him just the same. It's in the middle of a circle of a crowd that they find her, surrounded by the people that she's said to have loved the most. Lucy is fading away on the ground in the same manner that Gajeel appeared in the sky, but rather than white magic, golden bits fly away from her little by little.

The present Lucy is hugging her body, which is laid down, and sobbing incessantly, but conversely, the Lucy who is actually dying has but a few drops on her face and an attempted smile. Natsu is sitting next to her with tears streaming down his face and asking to receive no answer, "Why? Why, right after she came back to life again?"

Gray realizes then that this is the second time they have watched her die. But he can't just stand and watch. He pushes past Wendy and he's sorry for it, but he has no time for apologies. Future Lucy's eyes light up with final sparks of life as she sees Gray and Gajeel come closer, and present Lucy and Natsu move back a little.

"It passed by like a dream, didn't it? Our time in the sky?" Shimmering, shining, golden tears start falling down her cheeks. Gray motions not to speak, because though he knows she feels no physical pain, he looks at her face and it hurts him more than it could even imagine with every word she says.

"I'll miss you guys, and your stupid birthday stories..." she says, forcing the smile again, ignoring his wishes.

"I'll miss you and your expert tourism skills," he chokes out. For a second it's just him and her, right there, speaking to each other. For the last time.

"Hah, except there's nothing to miss, huh, Gray?" Her mouth breaks into a smile but her eyes betray her and the teardrops crash down like waterfalls. Natsu releases her hand and she moves it to cover her mouth, to cover the sobs she's sure would come.

"There's everything to miss." They're laughing and crying at the same time, and Gajeel is sitting next to them, keeping quiet only because he can't stop the tears.

"This is a bittersweet reminiscing..." Lucy says with what seems like a final sigh. Every word she speaks could be her last and it's killing _him_.

"Even in death, you still manage to make me laugh. I never told you, right? I was so impressed that you could do that." Gray wipes his eyes with a smile. She returns it, weakly. And he hurries up his speech.

"It's just not fair, this way."

"I can't stay here forever. The real Lucy-"

"You mean the present Lucy," he says. "You might not exist anymore... but you'll always be real to us, to me." She fades away more, faster every second, and he holds on tighter.

"The present Lucy has to make her own memories of the future. I can't be here at the same time or it'll block her from doing so."

"But you won't be living sometime else... you'll be gone. And we'll never see you again, me and Gajeel and everyone you liked more."

"Oh... who says there was anyone I liked more than you two?" she asks teasingly as her body almost completely disappears. "You may have been really annoying, and loved ganging up on me, but we shared... really similar experiences... and really similar pain and... I ... really... loved... you."

As she speaks her last word the remaining particles of her body rise into the sky and all that's left is a pure, white cape.

And his tears shed without a sound.


End file.
